Quote of the Day

[robinlandseadel at comcast.net]

Note as well, the Great Cohen in AtD.




--- Expletive Deleted <glennfuller at sbcglobal.net>
wrote:

> Actually Robert E. Howard's  Conan wasn't the first 
> to express that 
> sentiment.
> 
> To crush your enemies, and see them fall at your
> feet - to take their horses and belongings, and to
> hear the lamentation of their women. That is the
> best life. -                                 
>               --- 
> Ghengis  Khan

That was noted by the Wikipedia, even.  Meanwhile ...

To the Editor:

In a recent letter to the editor, Romain Gary asserts
that I took the name "Genghis Cohen" from a novel of
his to use in a novel of mine, The Crying of Lot 49.
Mr. Gary is totally in error. I took the name Genghis
Cohen from the name of Genghis Khan (1162-1227), the
well-known Mongol warrior and statesman. If Mr. Gary
really believes himself to be the only writer at
present able to arrive at a play on words this
trivial, that is another problem entirely, perhaps
more psychiatric than literary, and I certainly hope
he works it out.

Thomas Pynchon,

New York City.

http://web.archive.org/web/20000824131346/pynchonfiles.com/cohn.htm

http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_essays_cohen.html

http://www.pynchon.pomona.edu/cl49/GengCo.html